Top 12 Interaction Designer Skills to Put on Your Resume
In the dynamic field of interaction design, having a standout resume is pivotal for landing the role you want. Below, you’ll find 12 skills that strengthen your resume and help you meet the demands of modern interaction design work.
Interaction Designer Skills
- Sketch
- Figma
- InVision
- Adobe XD
- User Research
- Wireframing
- Prototyping
- Usability Testing
- Information Architecture
- Interaction Patterns
- HTML/CSS
- Agile Methodologies
1. Sketch
Sketch is a vector-based UI/UX design tool for creating wireframes, prototypes, and polished interfaces for digital products.
Why It's Important
Sketch gives Interaction Designers a fast, flexible space to craft interfaces, prototype flows, and build consistent systems, so teams move from idea to clarity without friction.
How to Improve Sketch Skills
Build stronger Sketch chops by tightening your workflow and leaning on its system features.
Master the core: Artboards, symbols, shared styles, and components. Speed first, polish later.
Use plugins wisely: Add-ons can automate tedious work. Keep your set lean and purposeful.
Libraries for consistency: Centralize components and tokens so updates ripple across files.
Stay organized: Naming, grouping, page structure. Future-you will thank you.
Prototype inside Sketch: Link screens, define hotspots, and communicate flows without context switching.
Design responsively: Work with constraints and resizing to adapt layouts across breakpoints.
Go deeper on vectors: Boolean ops and precision editing sharpen the final result.
Practice often: Recreate real products, timebox sprints, ask for critique, iterate.
How to Display Sketch Skills on Your Resume
2. Figma
Figma is a cloud-based design platform for interface design, prototyping, and real-time collaboration.
Why It's Important
Figma lets teams co-create, prototype, and hand off in one place. Less shuffle, more signal, faster iteration.
How to Improve Figma Skills
Components and variants: Scale design systems and keep UIs consistent without duplicating effort.
Auto Layout: Build responsive, durable components that adapt to content and screens.
Plugins: Automate flows, generate data, check accessibility. Keep only what you use.
Prototyping and motion: Use interactive components, variables, and smart animate to convey intent.
Comments and collaboration: Share early, respond quickly, resolve feedback in-line.
Shortcuts and workflows: Learn hotkeys and adopt naming conventions that scale.
Stay current: New features roll in often—fold them into your system where they truly help.
How to Display Figma Skills on Your Resume
3. InVision
InVision historically supported design collaboration and prototyping across teams.
Why It's Important
InVision played a key role in bridging design intent and stakeholder feedback through shareable prototypes and comments.
Note: InVision’s core platform has been sunset or significantly reduced in many organizations. Most teams have migrated prototyping and collaboration to Figma, Sketch’s cloud, or whiteboarding tools.
How to Improve InVision Skills
Document legacy flows: If your org still uses InVision, map and archive critical prototypes for continuity.
Streamline feedback: Keep comments actionable and link them to specific screens or hotspots.
Handoff clarity: Ensure specs and assets remain accessible if teammates rely on legacy exports.
Plan migration: Define a path to modern tools (e.g., Figma) with parity for components, tokens, and prototypes.
How to Display InVision Skills on Your Resume
4. Adobe XD
Adobe XD is a vector-based tool for wireframing, interface design, and prototyping.
Why It's Important
XD supports design, prototyping, and sharing in one environment. It’s familiar to teams steeped in the Adobe ecosystem.
Update: XD is in limited maintenance at many companies, with slower feature development. Many teams prioritize Figma for active collaboration.
How to Improve Adobe XD Skills
Prototype deeply: Build flows with states, timed transitions, and micro-interactions to convey nuance.
Lean on plugins: Use a focused set for content, accessibility checks, and automation.
Responsive design: Work with constraints and stacks to adapt layouts cleanly.
Co-edit and share: Keep stakeholders in the loop with share links and versioned updates.
Systematize: Create reusable components and token-like styles for speed and consistency.
How to Display Adobe XD Skills on Your Resume
5. User Research
User research uncovers needs, behaviors, and motivations so products align with real people, not assumptions.
Why It's Important
Research trims risk. It reveals friction, validates direction, and feeds design with evidence, not guesswork.
How to Improve User Research Skills
Set sharp objectives: Define what you must learn and which decisions your study will inform.
Mix methods: Interviews, surveys, field studies, diary studies, analytics, and moderated usability tests.
Invite empathy: Personas, journey maps, and empathy maps turn findings into shared understanding.
Test iteratively: Small, frequent sessions surface issues early when change is cheap.
Synthesize clearly: Cluster insights, highlight patterns, and translate them into actionable design moves.
Socialize findings: Show clips, readouts, and artifacts so the whole team absorbs the signal.
How to Display User Research Skills on Your Resume
6. Wireframing
Wireframing maps structure, hierarchy, and flow without getting tangled in visuals. It’s the skeleton that lets ideas move.
Why It's Important
Wireframes make conversations concrete. They reveal gaps, set scope, and let teams align on layout and interaction before investing in polish.
How to Improve Wireframing Skills
Start low-fidelity: Boxes, lines, words. Reduce noise, isolate intent.
Design for tasks: Anchor screens to user goals and the steps required to reach them.
Use patterns wisely: Familiar structures reduce cognitive load and speed comprehension.
Iterate fast: Collect feedback early, revise, and repeat. Momentum over perfection.
Clarify interactions: Note states, edge cases, and error handling right in the wire.
Collaborate openly: Share drafts, annotate decisions, and invite critique from product and engineering.
How to Display Wireframing Skills on Your Resume
7. Prototyping
Prototyping builds interactive models—from quick and rough to near-real—so teams can test ideas, flows, and feedback loops before coding.
Why It's Important
It derisks decisions. You see how the experience behaves in hands, not just on slides.
How to Improve Prototyping Skills
Define what you’re testing: Concept, navigation, copy, motion, or a specific interaction. Fidelity follows purpose.
Pick the right tool: Sketch, Figma, or XD for most flows; paper or click-throughs for speed; higher fidelity when nuance matters.
Work in layers: Start coarse, add detail only as confidence grows.
Collect evidence: Record sessions, track task success, and note hesitation points.
Close the loop: Apply findings quickly and test again. Small, steady gains compound.
Align cross-functionally: Share prototypes with stakeholders and engineers to validate feasibility and intent.
How to Display Prototyping Skills on Your Resume
8. Usability Testing
Usability testing observes real people completing tasks so you can spot friction, measure outcomes, and improve the experience.
Why It's Important
It validates whether users can succeed. If they struggle, the design changes—no debate, just data.
How to Improve Usability Testing Skills
State clear goals: What decisions will the test inform? Keep scope tight.
Recruit representative users: Match your audience. Edge cases matter too.
Write crisp tasks: Realistic, outcome-oriented, free of design jargon or hints.
Moderate with care: Stay neutral, probe gently, silence beats leading questions.
Mix metrics and notes: Task success, time on task, SUS, plus qualitative observations.
Iterate quickly: Fix top issues and re-test before they calcify.
Share artifacts: Clips, quotes, heat maps—evidence that moves decisions.
How to Display Usability Testing Skills on Your Resume
9. Information Architecture
Information Architecture (IA) structures content and navigation so people can find what they need and finish tasks without hunting.
Why It's Important
IA is the backbone of usable products. Good structure makes everything else simpler—navigation, search, labeling, even onboarding.
How to Improve Information Architecture Skills
Know your users and content: Inventory content, map intents, and learn mental models through research.
Shape structure: Hierarchies, categories, metadata, and cross-links that reflect how users think.
Design navigation: Clear entry points, sensible groupings, strong wayfinding and breadcrumbs.
Label precisely: Plain language, consistent terms, scannable headings.
Validate with testing: Card sorting, tree testing, and task-based usability checks.
Iterate as content evolves: IA is living; revisit as products grow.
How to Display Information Architecture Skills on Your Resume
10. Interaction Patterns
Interaction patterns are reusable solutions to common UX problems. They create familiarity and reduce cognitive load.
Why It's Important
Patterns speed design, steady experiences, and help users predict what happens next across the product.
How to Improve Interaction Patterns Skills
Study existing patterns: Identify what users already know and reuse it where it fits.
Prototype and measure: Test variations, observe behavior, and keep what proves itself.
Document your system: Usage guidelines, do/don’t examples, accessibility notes, and code parity.
Bake in accessibility: Keyboard flows, focus states, contrast, semantics—part of the pattern, not an afterthought.
Evolve selectively: Update patterns when evidence demands, not just for novelty.
How to Display Interaction Patterns Skills on Your Resume
11. HTML/CSS
HTML structures content. CSS shapes its presentation across screens and contexts.
For Interaction Designers, a working command of both tightens collaboration, clarifies intent, and helps build accessible, resilient interfaces. A dash of JavaScript knowledge goes a long way when discussing feasibility.
Why It's Important
HTML/CSS ground design decisions in what ships: responsive layout, semantics, and accessible patterns that scale.
How to Improve HTML/CSS Skills
Practice consistently: Rebuild components you design. Push layouts, spacing systems, and states.
Master layout: Flexbox and Grid for modern, maintainable structures.
Design responsively: Fluid scales, breakpoints with purpose, content-driven adjustments.
Use preprocessors or modern CSS: Variables, nesting, and logical properties reduce complexity.
Accessibility first: Semantic HTML, landmarks, contrast, focus order, and reduced motion options.
Debug like a developer: Live-inspect, tweak styles, and learn from computed results in browser dev tools.
Learn by sharing: Contribute to repos, post CodePen-style experiments, and seek code reviews.
How to Display HTML/CSS Skills on Your Resume
12. Agile Methodologies
Agile emphasizes short cycles, continuous feedback, and close collaboration to deliver value quickly and refine as you learn.
Why It's Important
Design thrives in Agile when evidence flows fast. You test, adapt, and align with real user outcomes instead of rigid plans.
How to Improve Agile Methodologies Skills
Collaborate tightly: Sync often with product and engineering. Keep scope negotiable and outcomes visible.
Prototype each sprint: Ship learning artifacts—wireframes, clickable flows, motion studies.
Integrate user feedback: Fold research and testing into every cycle, not just large milestones.
Refine your backlog: Frame design work as testable, outcome-based stories with acceptance criteria.
Retrospect and improve: Tune rituals, reduce handoff waste, and automate what slows you down.
How to Display Agile Methodologies Skills on Your Resume
